


exit wound in a foreign nation-

by Fruityloo



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruityloo/pseuds/Fruityloo
Summary: If you love something,





	exit wound in a foreign nation-

**Author's Note:**

> let it go.

“I’ve been stuck in the same city for almost a decade, Peter - you don’t know what that’s like.” This was supposed to be a relaxing Sunday brunch. The bright fall sun, warm on the patio. Leaves changing colors. So fucking idyllic. Even after a year, Neal can scarcely believe Peter and Elizabeth are sharing this with him. Can scarcely believe it’s real.

Doesn’t believe it’s real.

He grips his cup of lukewarm coffee and forces himself to meet Peter’s hard stale, to not flinch away when Elizabeth rests a hand on his arm. She’s trying so hard to understand. It hurts more than Neal thought it would.

Peter works his jaw, but says nothing.

“I have to see the world again,” Neal pleads, though he doesn’t know what for. Understanding, maybe. Forgiveness, probably.

Peter’s jaw unsticks itself. “I didn’t realize it was so hard for you.”

Of course Peter doesn’t understand. Wanderlust doesn’t plague him the way it plagues Neal. He doesn’t have the petulance of a three-year-old ripped from home, crying _trapped trapped trapped_ whenever roots sink into the ground.

Neal is a weed. And when he plants down the sucks the land dry.

“Have we done something?” Elizabeth asks, stroking down Neal’s arm. It’s her nervous tell, and she never bothers to hide it the way Peter does. She’s so honest.

See, he has to go, before a fruitful marriage turns to dry dead earth.

“Nothing!” he assures her, and lets go of his coffee cup. “You know me,” he smiles, fake, “never in one place for long.” Neal Caffrey does not form attachments. Neal Caffrey is ready to pick up his life and leave at any moment. When the going gets tough, Neal Caffrey gets gone.

He dreams of iron bars and soft pillows and warm hands like shackles and he’s not sure what the difference is between them anymore.

With a centering breath, Neal pauses to look at the art on their walls. In the living room hangs a sketch he finished while casing the Louvre; above their kitchen windows art intricate tiles in the Persian style, done as a distraction during a detour through Uzbekistan, back with Peter was still chasing him. And stuck to the fridge: a postcard of the Empire State Building, a cheap, glossing thing Neal picked up on his last visit to the airport.

He never planned to actually hop a plane. Truly.

It was just-- _nice_ . Surrounded by all that possibility; a hundred flights leaving daily, a hundred flights arriving, anywhere in the world. _He never planned to leave_ , but he still thought about it. Like how he used to wake up every morning and imagine what it would be like to cut the anklet. To run. Contingency plans.

Elizabeth noticed first.

Sometimes he’d stop on a walk through Central Park and just stare at the sky. Listen to planes rumbling softly overhead, far away, but somehow too close.

Autumn creeps into their kitchen. Neal shudders.

“I’ll come back,” he places his hand over Peter’s fist, and entwines the other with Elizabeth’s beside him.

She squeezes, “We know you will.”

Peter’s face says he’s not so sure.

“This is my home,” he says it like the force of his voice could make them all believe it, “Both of you. You’re home.”

* * *

 

It's not like Peter has any authority to keep Neal here, no anklet and no marshals and certainly no FBI resources to track him down. Neal served his time. He's a citizen, entitled to his own decisions. Peter has no authority but the voice of a lover, and he's never been very good at saying what he feels. Peter thinks himself an honest man, despite Neal’s best efforts to change that, and Peter is disgusted to know he would keep Neal here if he could. Tie him down and trap him and refuse to let him from his sight. Peter watches planes take off and land while Neal double-checks with the attendant about a weather delay. He cannot help the shaking of his hands.

It would destroy Neal, to be trapped.

 

Peter pulls Neal in by the collar of his shirt and kisses him. Hard but not  not hard enough to make Neal _stay_. His strokes down Neal’s arms, hands fluttering about his waist before pulling tighter. No tongue or teeth, but chaste by no definition of the word.

“Neal,” he whispers against his lips, and Neal leans away, far enough to meet his eyes. "Don't-" don't go, don't run, don't-

“I should go away more often, if you’re going to kiss me like that,” he grins, but it softens at the last minute, “Don’t look so grim.” Crows feet around the eyes remind Peter that Neal is miles away from the kid he threw in prison. “I’m coming back.”

“Good,” he says, firmly, “Because I’m not going to chase you this time.”

* * *

 

Peter is about to launch into complaining to El about his latest exciting mortgage fraud case when her pauses her dinner mid-bite, and stares deliberately at Peter’s plate.

“I made cornish hens,” she says, like some sort of revelation.

Peter stops cutting his asparagus. He almost hears Neal on the couch behind him, more than a little high and babbling with his hair mussed and pupils a little too wide, confessing to petty teenage theft and gushing over Elizabeth’s recipe for cornish hen. The incident was before they became an item, but just barely; the three of them knee-deep in an uncertain dance of flirtation, when the air weighed rich with possibility and their private dinners were filled with discussion on what exactly to do about Neal Caffrey.

Peter doesn’t turn around to face the living room, and he says nothing. He doesn’t need to. Elizabeth continues.

“I wonder if he’ll visit England,” she carefully cuts back into her chicken. Peter takes a heavy sip of wine, one of the bottles Neal left behind and Elizabeth artfully paired with their meal. Neal would probably appreciate it more. “Cornwall is nice this time of year-- oh, I should have given him a list of places to visit.”

“I’m sure Neal can make his own way around Europe.” His knife scrapes against his plate. Wine turns bitter in his mouth. Peter stares deliberately at his glass, but hears Elizabeth’s cutlery stop as well. “That wasn't supposed to sound so--” angry, jealous, bitter, pick any of the above.

Elizabeth sets her hand over Peter’s; finally, he looks up at her. She’s smiling at him, bright blue eyes stirring loneliness and warmth in equal measure. He smiles, too.

“He’ll come back,” she assures him, “he did promise.” She squeezes his hand once then returns to eating, as if that closes the matter, as if there’s nothing more to say. And she’s right, of course, even if Peter can scarcely swallow around his food for how longing sticks in his throat. Nothing he says or could say or doesn’t say would reach Neal anyway, separated by continents and oceans and an increasingly glaring difference in lifestyle. Sometimes when a butterfly beats its wings, the world just doesn’t care.

* * *

 

“Package arrived for us,” Elizabeth announces the second Peter gets through the door.

“You order something?” She always had pattern swatches and various kinds of cutlery samples arriving at the house. Their kitchen is a veritable mosaic of tableware, not that Peter minds. He’d eat cereal out of tupperware and be just as content.

“Hm, nope,” she walks into the kitchen and hops up on a stool, practically bouncing. “I think someone sent us a souvenir.”

Peter’s heart skips a beat, and his stomach does something not entirely unpleasant. He’s trying very hard not to worry about Neal, to not wonder. But ever the detective, Neal’s never been far from his thoughts, and this would be the first communication in a week.

“So,” Elizabeth urges, “Let’s open it.”

Still busy trying to get the rhythm of his heart steady, Peter gestures for Elizabeth to go ahead. She produces a pair of scissors and tears into it with efficiency. They get a _lot_ of packages.

And the package _is_ fabric. Something deep maroon, dappled with a copper-brown paisley pattern. “It’s a tie,” he laughs. It’s not unlike the rest of his ties in color scheme, but this one is thinner. And when he takes if from the box, the silk is softer. Upon examination, the stitches are less uniform. Handsewn.

Peter cares little for his wardrobe, but-- but it’s _gorgeous_.  

After living with Neal for a year, Peter knows Neal loves giving gifts. Gifts without occasion. Small gestures. Flowers delivered anonymously to Elizabeth's office, a cup of good coffee left on Peter’s desk in the late afternoon. Grand gestures; designer dresses for Elizabeth, not because she asked but because Neal loves to _give_. Because Neal grew up on a single mother’s paycheck, and because gifts were a rare, cherished thing.

“A _nice_ tie,” Elizabeth plucks the black box from his hands and turns it over, admiring the packaging. “Rubinacci silk,” she reads, “Neal’s in Italy?”

Peter retrieves the card that came with their package, but instead of off-white cardstock -- or hell, even a postcard -- a receipt flutters to the table.

As material-driven as Neal sometimes is, when he gives, he never expects anything in return. To flaunt the bill is out of character, and the worst parts of Peter’s mind scan the note for clues, for an S.O.S, a coded call for help, because why else would Neal-

_One Da Vinci reproduction...commissioned by...paid to the order of Neal Caffrey_

He sags with relief, near-hysteric laughter rushing into the space anxiety left behind. Elizabeth picks up the slip and flips it over with a smile.

She reads, “ _Dear Peter and Elizabeth. Hold onto this for tax season. Love, N.C.”_ She leans heavy on the table and laughs. They laugh, and laugh, and laugh. “We should hang this on the wall.”

Peter snorts.

The note, he knows, is a message. _‘I can stay the straight and narrow,’_ words Neal would never say aloud, but they’re written in his too-heavy penmanship, _‘And I do it as a gift to you_.’

 

* * *

 

Neal sends a lot of things. Small gestures, mostly: full sketchbooks that Elizabeth looks through with reverence. A few of her, a few of Peter, mostly landscapes. Knick-nacks for Peter’s office. A book of sudoku puzzles from Japan that’s clearly meant to be stored in the bathroom, and Peter pretended to be annoyed, but he was still grinning.

But the latest gift…

Elizabeth strokes her palm over the soft lamb’s skin leather, and traces the gold _E.B._ embossed into the cover. “It’s a planner.”

Simple, but elegant, and clearly costs more than she would ever consider spending on one planner in her life. The paper is thin, but soft with a good tooth that ink won’t bleed through. The inside slips from the leather jacket easily, meant to be replaced at the end of the year. Yes, it costs more than she would ever consider in her lifetime, but would last just as long.

“Does Neal think we’re both workaholics?” Peter laughs.

First a tie and now a planner, it’s beginning to look that way. Elizabeth thinks Neal just wants to give things he knows they’ll use. And besides, “We’re all kind of workaholics.”

After all, it is no simple matter to forge a Degas, even if Neal made it look so easy. It took the masters months, sometimes years, to craft their masterpieces, and Neal replicates their every stroke with flawless technique, with skill born of tireless practice.

“We did have the highest solve rate of any CI team,” Peter concedes, voice firm with pride. Elizabeth doesn’t have the heart to point out she wasn’t talking about his time as a CI, and instead starts thumbing through the pages.

This time the receipt is tucked between the first two pages. A mosaic. She tries to imagine Neal tiling someone’s patio and laughs with delight as she hands the slip to Peter. “I think this is for you.”

“I’ll go hang it up.”

She continues flipping through the planner. Neal pencilled in every birthday he could think of: June’s, Mozzie’s marked with a question mark, Diana’s and Jone’s and even Peter’s old ASAC, Reese Hughes. The anniversary of his release into Peter’s custody, and the day he was finally set free. Before she reached the end, Peter returns from taping up Neal’s receipt and snatches the planner from her hands, holding it to the light.

“Peter-- what are you doing?” She demands, but Peter isn’t cowed. He’s got that look in his eye, the flicker of excitement when he talks himself through the Sunday crossword. Elizabeth’s annoyance evaporates, leaving only warmth and intrigue, “What did you find?”

“This month,” Peter closes the book and holds it just _so_. Four solitary pages glint a soft gold, like the edges of an expensive showy bible, “He gilded the pages. What does that mean?”

He sets the planner down between them.

“Special month?” she wonders aloud, knowing there’s probably more to it than that. There always is, with Neal. She turns to the the month in question: April, the first full month of spring. Neals favorite, and, “Oh,” she gasps, and shows the page to Peter, her throat suddenly tight, “It’s our anniversary.” her voice cracks, and Peter grins back at her, his eyes shiny and wet.

 _Their_ anniversary. The three of them.

It’s an affirmation. That distance hasn’t changed what they are together, that Neal still sees them as a unit. That he still plans to come home. Their home. Their shared life.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that Neal set out to visit his exes. His world tour’s taken him through Uzbekistan, Turkey, Ireland, Scotland, a particularly long stay in France. It’s just that Cape Verde really is the closest thing to paradise on earth. And now he finds himself in London in the outdoor seating of an overpriced cafe situated directly across the street from Sterling Bosch’s London branch, folding a rather complicated origami rose. The name of his hotel and room number is scrawled delicately on the largest petal, signed _N.C._

 

“What are you doing in London?” Sara asks. They’re seated in his hotel’s martini bar sipping drinks but with the way Sara’s looking at him, they might as well be in an interrogation room.

He shrugs, “I go where the wind takes me.”

“Neal,” Sara says sharply, “You’re not on the run again, are you?”

If they weren’t in public Neal would have recoiled. Like he’d just been slapped. “No.” He hasn’t thought of running, truly considered it, since- since the island, probably. Peter crossed the ocean for him. “I couldn’t do that to Peter and Elizabeth.” He wouldn’t.

Sara stares at him, and maybe it’s been a good few years since they last spoke face-to-face, but she still knows him better than most, better than Kate ever did, surely, and almost as well as the Burkes. “Good,” she nods. “So - tomorrow. Lunch?”

  


“Sounds exciting,” Neal sighs, only a fraction of nostalgia bleeding into his voice. “Your job hasn’t changed much, has it?”

“Well, there’s less sun in London.” She raises a playful eyebrow in his direction, “We had our fair share of adventures back in the day, too,” she says, smiling with nostalgia. It’s as if they’re discussing the exploits of decades long past, not stories from just a few years ago. But Neal feels like a different man entirely, a stranger to the old Neal. He wonders, not for the first time, what a younger him would think of the person he’s become. Proud or disgusted?

He shrugs, feigning levity. “That’s just not my life anymore.” _Settled down_ , as Mozzie put it, a sneer in his voice, happy as he is for Neal’s happiness.

“Really?”  She doesn’t sound nearly as doubtful as he expected. Instead she leans in just _so_ , and Neal’s hindbrain trained on a con’s instinct, reads the angle of her body, he tight crease of her brow:

 _Lover’s once,_ says a detached voice, _see how she fixes her bracelet during the silences. Not strangers, but the years are showing._ Things he doesn’t need to intuit, but she’s making eye contact, she’s frowning, she-

The detached observer startles back into Neal, Neal the man, and not Neal the con. Is that pity in her face?

“Really,” he takes a bit of his pot-pie, but English food has never really been his favorite; _only when Elizabeth makes it_ , a different voice says, not detached, but longing, “I’m not exactly Quantico material, And I have a highly specialized set of skills. There are only so many things I can do as a security consultant. It pays the bills.” One third of a mortgage payment, and that’s something Neal never expected to have, ever, in his life. “Not really steady work.” He sighs.

“ _Oh_ , I get.”

“Oh?”

“You’re _bored_.”

His immediate instinct is denial. Sara may know him well but her claim is patently ridiculous! He loves the Burkes. Even with an ocean between them, he’s certain this is true. He’s not _bored._

Not with them.

But his life was always a series of disasters: goal-oriented by necessity, always in motion. This life he has with them is quiet, it’s retirement. Peter would say he never had a job to begin with and Mozzie laments daily how the field is poorer for his absence. For the first time since Neal was three years old, he’s rooted, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Neal’s protests die on his lips.

“You need a job.”

“I’m a security consultant.”

“And you find it so fulfilling.”

“I’m an ex-con,” he says, voice wavering.

“And I’m recommending you personally, so you better not slip up.”

Neal shuts his mouth.

“After I leave this message with Sterling Bosch, you’re booking the soonest flight back to New York.” Her tone leaves no room for argument.

He swallows, throat suddenly tight. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Neal lets himself in through the back door, the familiarity of it making his hands shake they way they _never_ would if this was a genuine breaking and entering.

It helps that he has the key.

"Neal?" Peter’s voice: surprise edging close to disbelief.

Neal smiles at him in the dark, uncertain, and hopes the kitchen is too dark for Peter to make out the painful details. “Hey, Peter.”

The kitchen lights flip on. He and Peter wince in unison, though Neal adjusts quicker. Elizabeth stands, slippered, beside the couch.

"Neal!" Elizabeth.

Before he can even process seeing her face again - beautiful with the mussed up hair and the sleep-puffy eyes and the kissable lips and oh my god _it’s really her_ \- she envelops him in a hug. Her warmth seeps into him, and the exhausting plane ride must've taken its toll, because he leans all his weight into her, and it feels so, so good.

"God, I missed you,” he breathes, and takes in the familiar smell of her shampoo, comforted by this constancy. All is as he left it.

"What are you doing back?" Peter's voice draws his head out of the warmth and back into the kitchen, the air sharp with early morning.

Neal shudders. "I said I'd come home, didn't I?"

"You should've called," Peter says tightly, and stalks over to wrap Neal and Elizabeth in his arms, kissing the top of Neal's messy hair.

"It happened kind of suddenly."

"I'd have picked you up from the airport." Probably the closest to _I don't hold your absence against you_ as Neal would ever get. He smiles into Elizabeth's shoulder and leans back into Peter's warm embrace, the tension of trans-continental travel melting from his muscles all at once. He's suddenly aware of how exhausted he is.

"Come on," Elizabeth says, patting Neal on the arm, “Tell us about your trip. I’ll start the coffee,” and she turns to put the pot on without waiting for Neal’s response. 

“It’s four in the morning,” he protests, squashing down on the seed of guilt in his stomach and instead focuses on the warmth blooming in his chest. “I wasn’t supposed to wake either of you. All I had to do was leave this postcard by the coffee pot.” He sets in the center of the table instead. It’s a glossy, cheap thing he picked up on his way out from the airport. On the back is his old cell phone number, nothing else, signed N.C.  Like he's a visitor in his own house.

But he left them without a phone call for four long months; Neal isn't sure if it _is_ his house anymore, or if he lost that right the moment his plane took off. Peter already chased him to Cape Verde once, and that’s one more time than anyone should ever have to worry about a lover some unknown where overseas. So, he doesn't have high hopes

But Neal does hope.

“You’re losing your touch,” Peter prods, smiling. He sits on a stool and gestures for Neal to take the one beside him, “So, did you go to Cornwall?”

Yellow dawn breaks into the kitchen, and for the first time since landing, Neal feels certain. 

He's home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from They Might be Giant's song Ana Ng.


End file.
